Americans in Paris: The Eternal City and the Upstart Nation

Seventh Heaven

A young, surprisingly naive, prostitute is saved from her overbearing sister and then from the police by an ambitioius street cleaner. The two fall in love but all too soon the war intervenes…

Love Me Tonight

Rouben Mamoulian | USA | 1932 | 104 minutes

It is possible to be more French than Maurice Chevalier? Here he plays a humble tailor, who finds himself posing as a nobleman to collect a debt, while doing so he falls in love with the haughty Princess Jeanette.

Design for Living

Ernst Lubitsch | USA | 1933 | 91 minutes

Two Americans, a playwright and a painter, move to Paris, they both fall for the same woman and she proposes a rather perculiar arrangement – she will live with them platonically as a friend and critic, but when one of the friends goes out of town how long will the agreement last?

Ninotchka

Ernst Lubitsch | USA | 1939 | 110 minutes

Three Russian diplomats who have been thoroughly seduced by Paris receive a visit from a stern female inspector from the mother country. In order to stay in Paris and away from the Gulags, they persuade their friend a displaced nobleman to show her the pleaures of the West.

The Private Affairs of Bel Ami

Albert Lewin | USA | 1947 | 112 minutes

George Sanders climbs the social ladder by way of several advantageous liaisons and marriages in Belle Epoch Paris. Recently remade with teen idol Robert Pattinson, but when you are up against Sanders there really is no competition for King of the Cads!

Funny Face

Stanley Donen | USA | 1957 | 103 minutes

Audrey Hepburn made so many films set in Paris, we could have almost given her a season alone! Here she is an intellectual, dowdy bookseller who wants to go to Paris to meet her philosopher hero… Fred Astaire will take her if she agrees to be his model. If you can get over the disturbing age difference of the two leads there is much to enjoy is this exuberant musical.